There Was A Boy
by Christine Erik
Summary: A very strange, enchanted boy..." Please R&R! In-Progress. Rating subject to change. Set before and during the events of the Tim Burton film. Benjamin Barker and his family's history from Benjamin at age ten on through the film.
1. 1862

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A few quick **author's notes**: I do not own the character of Benjamin Barker, this story is based off of the Tim Burton film, and the characters may seem a bit OOC throughout the story, but please bear with me!! Please read and review. It would be greatly appreciated!

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**Chapter One — 1862**

The front door creaked open just as ten-year-old Benjamin Barker woke up from a fitful night's sleep. He lay in bed for a few minutes, just listening to the wind gently blowing in. Even though it was approaching springtime, the weather seemed not to care, as the gentle breeze quickly became as cold as the middle of winter. He rose, tiptoeing carefully so as to not wake his parents and baby sister, but stopped just outside their door.

Inside, he heard the voice of a strange man with a strange accent.

"Well, well! Wha've we 'ere? Such a pretty li'l thing, ain't she? Too bad she'll be the first to go…"

"No!" Benjamin's father earnestly whispered. "Take me. Take anything else in the house. The china, the silverware, my knives—anything but my family!"

Benjamin's father, William Barker, was a well-known barber who had just received a new set of shaving knives as a gift from a local judge for three years' worth of great shaves, and all of London knew about it. Therefore, knowing this was an offer he shouldn't refuse, the man nodded, grinning. "Alrigh', Barker. Go fetch yer knives and bring 'em to me out in the alley. If ya ain't out there in two minutes, the baby goes first."

"Alright, Paolo. I'll be out there in one."

Benjamin heard footsteps coming his way, so he quickly hid underneath a table. In the darkness, the man did not see him. He passed right by the table and, after quickly glancing back to make sure William was following him, went out the door and to the mouth of the alley.

Staying true to his word, William said nothing to his wife or children before picking up his knives and meeting Paolo. Benjamin, curious as to what was going on, followed his father. Creeping along the house's perimeter in darkness, he hid behind a small bush.

"Here," William said, handing the box of knives to Paolo, "take them. Now, please—leave me and my family alone. We have done nothing. Enjoy the blades."

"Oh, I will," Paolo said, opening one just as William turned back toward the street. "I'll enjoy them almost as much as I enjoy this!"

Benjamin's eyes widened as he realized what the man was about to do, and screamed. "FATHER!"

But William was already on the ground, twitching, as blood ran down the sides of his neck and pooled underneath his head. Without thinking, Benjamin ran toward his father.

"Well, well! It seems there is another Barker. 'tis too bad you 'ad ter see tha', 'cause now I'm gonna hafta ge' you, too." Paolo reached for the blade again, but Benjamin was faster and kicked it out of his hand.

"You bastard!" screamed Benjamin, "you killed my father! I will have my revenge, mark my words. Do not forget my face."

Paolo only laughed. "You? Yer bu' a boy! Run along home now, 'fore I do ter you wha' I did ter tha' man. And don' you ever, EVER tell no one my name, you 'ear? You do, and it'll be the las' thing you e'er say." With that, he turned around and left. When he got to the end of the street, he turned back. "I mean it, boy! Never!"

Benjamin, overcome by his anger toward this man, merely responded, "Oh, don't worry. I don't even know your name. But know this: you can never really get away. As sure as the sun burns in the sky, I will find you and I will kill you. I don't care how long it takes to find you. I will; and when I do, I recommend you be ready."

Benjamin watched Paolo leave. When he could not longer see the lanky man's dark hair, he turned and ran back to his father. "Father, please…please be alright!" he said, listening for breathing. When he heard none, he ran back to the house and brought his mother.

Gwendolyn Barker was a strong woman, and all of London knew it. She had suffered two miscarriages, had three children die before they reached the age of two, and had recently lost her brother in a mad horse-trampling. Yet, through it all, she stood tall and retained her composure. At the sight of her beloved husband lying dead in a pool of his own blood on the cobblestone alleyway, she dropped to her knees. Benjamin told her everything that had passed and made her promise that she wouldn't say anything about the man's name when the police came. "Benjamin, I swear on my brother's grave that I shall not even whisper the name. Now, go back to the house and wake the man on the floor above us, the one renting the attic, and ask him to go fetch the police. Then go tend to your sister's needs. I have no idea how long this will take. Take your sister into bed with you and try to sleep. I have a feeling that tomorrow will be a long day."

"Yes, Mother," Benjamin replied, hugging her. "I will."

And that he did. After tucking his sister into his bed, he went to his window and looked at the sky. As he did so, he looked at the moon and swore to his earlier promise. "I will find you, Paolo. I will find you, and I will kill you, if it is the last thing I ever do."


	2. 1878

**Chapter 2 — 1878**

"Oh, come now, Benjamin. You can't wait much longer. Why, at this rate, Lilianna will have children before you even _consider_ marriage!"

"Mother," responded Benjamin, "would that be such a bad thing? Right now, you and Lilianna need me more than any other woman in London does. Taking over Father's business has worked well for us. I bring in money for you to buy food, you provide a home for me. It works. It's mutually benefiting. And besides, I really don't want to leave you two alone. Until you get your shoppe going and Joseph can keep a steady job, I'm staying."

"Benjamin, I thank you. Really, I do. You've been very accepting of Joseph, and we appreciate that. We were both very afraid you and Lilianna would think—"

"We know what you were afraid we'd think, Mother," came Lilianna's voice from the door. "We've had this discussion. While he will never be our father, you love him and he loves you, so we will give him the benefit of the doubt and trust him. In time, maybe we'll come to love him, as well. Only God knows when that day is, but until then just _be happy_. Speaking of Joseph, he was looking for you. He said he had something for you to see."

"Alright, then. But Benjamin, you think about what I said. It's about time you start living for yourself and not others. I'm off now, but I'll see you when you get home, alright, love?"

Lilianna, as Gwen left, turned to him and said, "I just came to fetch 'er. See ya back at the house."

"Alright. I'll be there in a few hours."

Not two minutes after his mother and sister left, the woman who owned the pie shoppe (and who rented the room above for Benjamin to set up his barber shoppe in) came through the door with hot tea and pie.

"Greetings, Mrs. Lovett," Benjamin said. "You just missed my mother and sister. You really must meet them sometime. It's for them that I set up my shoppe."

"They must be quite proud," Nellie answered. "If I may ask, though, wha' 'appened that made you the breadwinner, so to speak? Wha' about yer dad?"

For a moment, Benjamin forgot himself, and told the story of what happened.

All of it.

Including Paolo's name.

"Damn!" he said, cursing himself for his forgetfulness.

"Wha'? What is it?" asked Nellie, rushing to his side.

"Mrs. Lovett—"

"Nellie, please."

"Alright, Nellie, he told me to never say his name. He said he'd kill me if I did it."

"Oh, come on now! 'ow is he supposed to know that'? There's no one 'ere, just me and you. Relax," she said, "have some tea, then go 'ome. You're obviously worried, so go talk to her mum and sister. You need to work this out."

"Thank you, M—Nellie. I really appreciate it."

"No problem, dearie," she said, leaving. "Run along home. I'll lock up."

Benjamin was in such a rush that he didn't even bother hailing a taxicab. He ran home and was astonished by what he saw there.

A bucket brigade with smoke pouring out of the windows of the house.

He ran forward, intending to go inside and get everyone in it out, when he was stopped by the grip of strong female hands on his shoulders.

"You can't go in there, Benjamin," his mother choked out. "It's too dangerous!"

Noticing that he and Gwen were standing alone, he screamed inside his head. "Mother," he began, trying to keep his voice flat, "where are they?"

His mother said nothing, trying to find the right words of consolation.

"Mother, please. Where are they? What happened?"

"Joseph and Lilianna were in the kitchen when one of them dropped a lamp. Somehow, the flame spread through the house too quickly for them to get out. I was outside when I saw flames after smelling smoke. When I saw them on the floor, I knew they were gone. The next thing I knew, there was a fire brigade. They're gone, Benji," sobbed his mother before screaming, "THEY'RE GONE!"

Benjamin wrapped his mother in a bear hug with as much protection as he could muster, and said, "Shh, it's alright Mother. We'll be alright…"

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**The next night…

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**"Thank you so much, Nellie, for allowing us to stay. We really only need one room and can make our meals once you finish yours." 

"Bah, Gwen. Did ya really think I wouldn't insist on the two o' ya eatin' with me? It'll be much easier and less costly." Turning to Benjamin, she said, "By the way, don't worry about rent. Pay me when you can, not before."

"But, Nellie—"

"Don't you 'but Nellie' me, Benjamin. My mind 'as been made up."

"Mrs. Lovett—" began Gwen.

"Nellie, please, dear."

"Nellie, I can help in your pie shoppe if you're willing to allow it. You don't have to pay me or anything, but I'd like to earn my keep _somehow_."

"So be it, Gwen. However, you _will_ be paid. I won't have you working for free. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Gwen replied, laughing at Nellie's mock seriousness. "But only until I find myself another job. Then I'll work for you for free, whether you like it or not! Or—better yet—let's do this: all the money you would pay me for working on your pies will go toward Benjamin's rent. How does that sound?" she asked, facing Nellie.

"Mother," Benjamin began, "I really can pay my own rent."

"I do not believe I was talking to you, Benji. Well, Nellie, what do you think?"

Having had but a minute to mull it over, Nellie responded, "I think you're both right. So Gwen, your wages will go toward rent o' the room—approximately one half of Benjamin's rent—and Benjamin, you will pay for the rent of the furniture. That's it, and that's that."

"Thank you, Nellie," Benjamin responded, "that is very kind of you."

"Yes, Nellie, thank you," said Gwen, giving her a quick hug. "The world needs more people like you."

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**The next morning…

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From the shoppe to the cemetery wasn't very far, so the three walked in their mourning clothes. Since Benjamin and Gwen couldn't afford a funeral service and had refused any of Nellie's persistent offers, it was decided that they would go right to the cemetery to bury Joseph and Lilianna. After a quick prayer for each soul to go to heaven, the bodies were lowered into the ground, next to each other, in the Barker plot, even though Joseph was not a Barker (this was a provision in William's will—any man a Barker woman marries is to be buried in the plot).

Upon returning to Nellie's pie shoppe, they saw a young girl of no more than seventeen waiting outside. The girl was skinny, but not unhealthily so, with medium-length blonde hair and beautiful green eyes. All these things did not go unnoticed by Benjamin, who could not tear his eyes away from her. He barely noticed when Nellie rushed forward to greet her, but did hear the girl's name—Lucy.

"Come now, Benjamin. Let's go change and prepare for work," his mother said, snapping him out of his daze.

"Oh, of course, Mother," he responded, unknowingly causing Gwen to smile as his face turned red, "let's."

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Time for some **author's notes**. Again, Benjamin Barker and Mrs. Lovett (a.k.a. Nellie) are not my characters. I don't know who exactly they belong to, but I'm guessing Stephen Sondheim, since his version of the story is the one upon which I base this one. **_Please please please review!_** I will update this story as often as possible, but if no one reads or reviews, I may be inclined to just let it drop due to lack of interest. For any of you out there who do read it, thank you, and please review! 


	3. 1879

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More **author's notes**! Yay! Anyway, again, Benjamin Barker, Mrs. Lovett/Nellie, Lucy, and Davy Connor are not my characters. I just like playing with them sometimes. ;-)

Again, **please read and review**!! It's the only way I'll know if I should keep writing or not, so please let me know.

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**Chapter 3 — 1879**

Benjamin Barker was pacing outside of his mother's door, waiting for Nellie and the doctor to come out. Finally, after an hour of waiting, the doctor exited, but Nellie did not.

"What is it, Doctor?" asked Benjamin quietly.

The doctor shook his head. "Benjamin, it brings me great sorrow to say this, but your mother has tuberculosis."

"Consumption," Benjamin said in recognition.

"Yes," the doctor replied, "consumption. She has approximately two weeks—one month if she's a real fighter—to live. I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do for her. It's too far progressed. I recommend you two start making arrangements."

"Thank you. Have you told her yet?"

"Which one? Nellie or your mother?"

"Both, actually. Have you told either one?"

"Yes. They both know. Just do your best to make her comfortable, alright? That's pretty much all you can do."

"Alright. Thank you, Doctor. Now, if you don't mind," he said, attempting not to betray himself with his voice, "I'd like to see my mother."

"That's quite fine, and you're welcome. I'll let myself out, if that's alright."

"That's fine," said Benjamin, before entering his mother's room. "Goodbye." Once inside, he saw his mother in her bed, sleeping. Without thinking, he stood by her side. After an hour, Nellie left and brought back a meat pie and some tea, but he found he could not eat. "Thank you, Nellie, but I really cannot eat or drink right now."

"Very well. I know what you mean," she said, and took back the untouched pie but leaving the tea. "If you need to talk, love, I'm always here."

"Thank you." Upon his mother's stirring, he added, "May I please be alone with her for a minute?"

"Of course," she said. As soon as she got out the door, though, she stood by the wall to hear their conversation, and was relieved to hear that it was only plans for the inevitable.

One night, approximately two months later, she heard Benjamin cry out. She rushed over and flew open the door to see Gwen lying on the bed, grey, with her unseeing eyes and motionless mouth open, though she was not breathing. Without thinking, she pulled a sheet up over Gwen's head and held Benjamin as he finally let twenty-one years' worth of tears flow. Tears for his father, his uncle, his unborn brothers and sisters; tears for his sister, his stepfather, and the world in general. When he was finally finished, he stepped back from Nellie's embrace.

"I apologize," he began, "that was inappropriate of me. I should not have done that to you, Mrs. Lovett."

Nellie sighed. "Benjamin, you have nothing to apologize for. There is nothing wrong with a man sharing his feelings once in a while. If you don't mind my askin', wha'd the two o' ya decide?"

"That we would bury her in the family plot at sunrise the day after. We've had a priest on call, but we won't need him. It will be simple—say a prayer, lower her into the ground, and leave."

"Alright. Love, it's comin' up on sunrise. We should get the undertaker to drive 'er over and get over there ourselves."

"That we should, Mrs. Lovett. That we should."

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**Later that day...**

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The funeral was simple, and exactly how Benjamin said it would be. The next few months seemed to fly by for Nellie and Benjamin, who kept their minds off of their deceased loved ones by working. One night, business was so slow that Benjamin closed his shop early and headed down to Nellie's pie shoppe for a pie and a pint. However, when he got down there, he was surprised to see Paolo sitting at a table, looking as young as he did when Benjamin was ten. Seeing Paolo filled him with such rage that he was about to take his pint glass, break it, and shove a piece through the man's neck when the man turned around. 

Not Paolo.

However, he did have a young boy—maybe eight or nine years old—with him.

"Excuse me, sir," the man called, "I believe these are yours."

When Benjamin turned back, he was astonished to see his father's box of shaving knives. "How…how did you…where were they?" he stammered.

"I found them in my floor. You are Barker, correct?" asked the man with a slight accent.

"I am," Benjamin said, "and thank you. I've been missing these. They mean a great deal to me. Can I do anything for you? Give you a free shave, perhaps?"

"Thanks, but no thanks. Actually, though, my son is interested in becoming a barber. Would you mind if he watched? He used to gaze at those blades for hours on end before I saw the name on the box and commanded he leave them alone. He could sweep hair or something, if you'd like."

Upon seeing the boy nod furiously in excitement, Benjamin smiled. "Of course. What's your name, son?"

"Davy, sir. Davy Connor," answered the boy.

"Well, Davy, I'd be delighted to have you help out. When can you be here?" he asked, looking at the father more than the son.

"He can be here in the afternoons between two and four, if that's alright with you."

"Of course. Well, Davy, I'll see you tomorrow!"

"'Bye, Sir! Thank you!"

"You're quite welcome. Hurry off now!" Benjamin said, watching Davy do just that with a huge grin on his face, his father following suit.

"Well, that's a mighty fine thing ye've gone an' done there," said a gentle voice from Nellie's shoppe, startling him. When he looked, he saw the same beautiful blonde woman, only now she was an adult. When he failed to produce words, he held her hand out to him to shake. "My name is Lucy. I'm Nellie's cousin." When Benjamin kissed her hand, instead of shaking it, they both turned red. "Forgive me," she said, withdrawing her hand. "I sometimes forget about that. What is your name, good sir?"

"Forgive me, as well. I seem to have forgotten most of my manners. My name is Benjamin Barker. Nellie rents the room upstairs to me, and it is there that I run a barber shoppe. Nothing grand, just a simple chair and desk."

"I know," Lucy responded, "Nellie told me." After glancing up at the sky, she said, "I really must be going. I need to get home so I can rest. It was lovely meeting you, Benjamin Barker."

"And you as well, Ms. Lucy, but please—it's getting quite dark. I know you have no more reason to trust me than any other man in London, but please allow me to accompany you home. I wouldn't get one wink of sleep if I didn't."

Lucy laughed. "As you wish, but it's just next to Nellie's shoppe. She is letting me live with her until I can find a place of my own."

"I had no idea," he said, watching her walk away, leaving him standing alone. "I understand, though. Have a good night, Ms. Lucy."


	4. September, 1879 through July, 1880

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Three chapters put up in one day? It must be a miracle! Not really. All of the characters in this chapter (with the exception of Davy's father) are not mine. They belong to someone I don't know, so please don't sue me. I am merely borrowing them. Once again, please read and **review**!!

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**Chapter 4 — 1879-1880**

Within a few months' time, Davy was coming in regularly and Benjamin was courting Lucy. In September of 1879, just around the start of fall, Benjamin proposed to Lucy, and she accepted. By mid-October, they were married. Since neither of them had close family, the service was extremely small and the crowd contained only Nellie (the Maid of Honour), Davy, Davy's father (the Best Man), and a few other select friends.

After taking one week to themselves, they returned to the real world. Lucy rotated between helping her cousin in the pie shoppe and her husband in the barber shoppe until it was discovered that she was pregnant. They fetched a midwife, and she said the baby would be born in late July of the next year. Upon the arrival of March, Benjamin insisted that she not work. In short order, she was banned from both shoppes, so she sat and knitted baby clothes instead.

In May, Benjamin shut down his shoppe and—with Nellie's help—transformed the room into a little flat. Lucy loved it as soon as she saw it, and they moved up there immediately.

In mid-July, in the midst of the stickiest day that summer, Lucy's water broke. Benjamin was downstairs when he heard her yell. He ran up to her while Nellie quickly fetched the midwife. There were no complications in the birth, and when the baby was finally cleaned off, the midwife handed it to Benjamin, saying, "Meet your child—a baby girl."

Benjamin wept slightly, silently, as he looked into his daughter's face, realizing at once what everyone meant when they said children were a gift from God.

"Ben, love, what's wrong?" asked Lucy, just then stirring awake after a short nap.

"Nothing, my dear. Nothing." He walked over to her side and bent over, handing their daughter to her. "Meet your baby girl. What should we name her?"

"Honestly, I think you should choose."

"Honestly?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you love me, I love you, and I want you to," she responded with a smile.

Benjamin couldn't help but smile at that. "You know how to get me to do anything, don't you?"

"Yep," she responded, "I 'ave you wrapped around my finger. Now, what's her name?"

He thought about it for a moment, then said, "I'd like to name her after my sister and all my parents. Since she'll already have my and my father's name, I think her name should be Johanna Gwendolyn Barker. How does that sound?"

"It's beautiful," answered Lucy. Then she turned her head to face her baby girl. "What do you think?"

Johanna gurgled happily in response, making her parents laugh.

"Johanna Gwendolyn it is, then," said Benjamin.

"Oh, yeah," Lucy added. "That name is definitely a keeper."

Johanna gurgled happily again, and her father smiled. "Definitely."


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